And on what data do EUROCONTROL base their view on?

What data do the UK Met Office base THEIR data on – seems like its already been discredited as an inaccurate model.

None the less, it explains why some European airlines are flying and yet the UK isn’t. It also makes it understandable why UK airlines are pressuring to be allowed to fly again.

If Eurocontrol are proven right (and I sincerely hope they are), then as I said before heads need to roll at the Met Office and at NATS.

Andy

Well that would answer part of my question and beg the question of NATS, why we are not flying?

Because NATS are using Met Office data – see the charts further up.

It beggars belief that the two organisations – Eurocontrol and NATS/Met Office – could have such different views of the ash up to FL200 at 1200Z. If the current European flying that is taking place proves there is no impact on the aircraft (i.e. Eurocontrol is right), someone in the Met Office and/or NATS is going to have a lot of explaining to do. ANd given the scale of the economic impact this is having, I don’t think “our computer models aren’t quite right” will be good enough.

Andy

I’ve thought about it plenty thankyou. It is merely illustrative of the fact that there is space on ferries. I highly doubt that the Navy is “allowed” to carry masses of civilian passengers either under normal circumstances – the government could just as easily have told the ferry companies they could carry more walk ons than send in the Navy, but of course sending in the Navy is a high-profile thing and Gordon the Gofa can use it to claim (nearing an election) that he’s the hero who is sorting this out. The Spanish ferries are irrelevent – plenty of people have gotten themselves back from Spain to the Channel ports and its just the lazy who are sat in Spain waiting to be rescued.

Andy

Holding an entire industry to ransom? I wasn’t aware that NATS were witholding access to airspace under their control for the purposes of extortion.

NATS have closed airspace (ie. all class A which includes the London TMA and airways, and airspace around the airports they control). Its already been demonstrated that some sectors of the aviation industry can operate quite safely and legally, despite the ash. But NATS seems to be taking a rather intransigent “airspace closed” approach. As I’ve said several times already, IMHO NATS should offer services inside controlled airspace to any operator that can legally and safely operate – and those decisions should be based around the ANO and in the airline’s case around their Ops Manual approved by the CAA. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why airways at low levels should be closed (e.g. below 10000′ or whatever is the lowest level ash has been detected), nor airports at which NATS provides ATC coverage.

I now have half a mind this approach is actually the doing of those two idiots in government Brown and Adonis, applying pressure to NATS to close airspace as a CYA action. Just like the rediculous action of sending the Navy ships in to Channel ports (when the reality is the cross channel ferry operators are saying people can more or less take cars onto the next ferry), I wonder if its becoming a goverment “we’re doing everything we can to keep people safe” smoke and mirrors type thing, whilst in reality they’re fiddling whilst Rome (aka the airlines) burns.

Andy

Paul, I think it is setting a rather unfortunate precident to allow an air traffic control service to decide what traffic it will allow into the airspace it manages and when. I believe it is up to the ANO and an AOC’s ops manual to determine whether a flight is safe and legal – the AOC’s ops manual should state whether and in what concentrations of ash specific aircraft can be operated into. And if the operation is legal as determined by the ANO and AOC holder’s ops manual, then an air traffic control service should be required to provide a service to the operation.

As an example: Yesterday, DHL Air UK flew a 757F from EMA to Lasham VFR in glass-G at around 4000 feet. DHL had to buy VFR charts from the local flying club! The flight couldn’t operate at higher levels because NATS won’t allow access to the airways. Does anyone think that having a 757 (even a bright yellow one) whizzing around at low level in the open FIR with no radar cover is a good idea – it was legal, but not particularly clever as far as other VFR traffic was concerned, and arguably less safe than it would have been just a few thousand feet higher in the Daventry airways sector under radar cover from NATS.

Andy

Well thats thrown a spanner in the works.
NATS are reporting that the cloud of Ash is getting worse again.
Scotish Airspace is still on for 0700 open BUT only SOME English airspace by 1300. But not London

I think its about for NATS – and the government for that matter – to go back to supporting any air traffic that needs access to airspace, and leaves the decisions on whether flights can operate or not to airlines (which are quite rightly answerable to the CAA through conformance with their ops manuals). It is bizarre that an organisation like NATS can hold the entire industry to ransom by denying access to airspace.

Andy

This is a UK perspective – other countries may differ:

They are not banned. In fact, there has been a lot of disinformation about what is and isn’t banned. Essentially what has happened is that, on advice from ICAO, NATS has decided not to issue IFR clearances. That precludes any flights in class-A airspace (mainly the London TMA and the airways). NATS has also arbitarily decided not to allow [almost all] arrivals and departures from airfields at which it provides air traffic services – airports like Heathrow. Other airports, such as my local airport East Midlands, are quite happy to allow VFR departures and arrivals, which means the local flying clubs and private aircraft have been coming and going, and for exampel yesterday DHL flew a 757 from East Midlands to Lasham for maintenance – it operated VFR, below airways (mainly in the open IFR class-G airspace, but also in the East Midlands class-D airspace). VFR is of course not very practical for commercial operations, depending as it does on staying out of clouds! However, also to illustrate the point, Aurigny and Blue Islands have been operating inter-channel islands flights (which by their nature fly at low levels anyway) quite happily for the last few days.

They are operating, and always have been, as long as they don’t need to operate IFR or in class-A airspace (or from NATS airports!). See above and bmused55’s answer. However, to pick up on one point – small piston engines in light aircraft mainly use filtered air, but the large radial piston engines do not have air filters.

Dunno, but in particular advice has been sought from engine manufacturers (who have presumably tested their engines under differing environmental conditions) when formulating the fly/don’t fly rulings versus predicted (see below) ash concentrations.

Primarily yes, which is why the airlines are getting a little upset now – it seems based on the test flights and sampling flights that have been operated over the last couple of days (and has almost been admitted by the transport secretary given that he said today that work was ongoing on trying to refine the predictive computer models) that the models may not be all that accurate.

It seems that the computer modelling has been thought to be sufficiently accurate until now. As bmused55 says, there must be a question mark over the value of such measures being put into place given the relative rarity of such a major event. However, if such measures are actually effective, maybe now is the time for governments to consider a global volcano eruption monitoring service, funded by a wide range of countries, with equipment that can be deployed anywhere in the world as such events occur.

Andy

Does anyone working in the airline industry know how things will work when the planes get back in the air?

eg: can I still book a flight for next Monday and (ash-permitting) expect to fly or is it more likely that the airlines will still be working at capacity to deal with 7 plus days of backlogged pax?

I ask, as I’m due to travel on business next week but haven’t booked a ticket yet…

(and I’d dearly like a good excuse not to go anywhere 😀 ).

Thanks

Seb

Practically speaking, I’m not sure and its likely each airline will make its own decisions. The most oft used model is for pax already booked on a specific date in future to be allowed to travel that date, and for disrupted pax to be reaccommodated when space is available – however, in cases where there’s been huge disruption it hasn’t always worked that way and some airlines have in the past given priority to specific disrupted passengers irrespective of who holds bookings on each flight. As I am also meant to travel on business next Tuesday, I have today booked the flights and there doesn’t seem to be any block, capacity restrictions or hiked prices for travel a week from now. I booked now, rather than leaving it another day or two, because I felt it was important to get my bookings into the system – to get a towel on the beach so to speak – in order to ensure that on the day I want to travel the flights aren’t totally booked out with people who are currently affected by this mess. If anyone must travel in the next week or so and hasn’t yet booked, I’d recommend doing it now because once “normal” service is resumed there’s likely to be a huge tide of re-bookings of disrupted pax onto flights that operate over the following few days.

Andy